April 6, 2005

Hikers dispose of trail trash

GT Hiking Club performs VASA spring cleaning

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer

       What do car parts, cross-country ski bindings and PowerBar wrappers have in common?
      They were all swept up by volunteers from the Grand Traverse Hiking Club Sunday afternoon during a clean-up hike on the VASA Trail's 10K loop. Sixteen volunteers turned out on the bright but brisk day to walk the trail, training their eyes on the ground and pouncing on debris.
      "We found some broken glass from headlights and an exhaust pipe," said Debbie Page of Traverse City, a member of the hiking club.
      Active with her husband year round in sports such as snowshoeing, biking, backpacking, paddling and hiking, Page said outdoor sports enthusiasts are often stewards of the environment.
      "I think everybody here is very environmentally involved because we are outside a lot," she noted. "We are really concerned about it so we go out and clean up things."
      The Hiking Club volunteers gathered a few bags of debris among them, less than expected, but may clean up the trail again later in the spring when the hard packed snow has completely melted.
      Club president John Heiam noted that some of the trash is left there inadvertently by cross-country skiers. Wrappers from Goo, a nutrition packed gel, were also common; the brown-colored ones of the chocolate flavor were the hardest to find as they blended in with the ground.
      "What happens often times is they take a snack while they are skiing, eat it and stick the wrapper in their pocket," Heiam said. "Later, it falls out and goes in the snow and no one sees it again until spring."
      He and his wife, Lois Goldstein, hiked the VASA Trail's 5K loop on Saturday, clearing it of debris. From these two hikes, he discovered that snack debris does not appear until a few kilometers into the trail. Heiam hypothesizes that this happens because that is when skiers start getting hungry and thirsty.
      "We don't find huge amounts of stuff, just little things there and there, but it is so heavily used that it is just a nice thing to do," Heiam said. "We found two funny things: a pair of men's boxers in the parking lot and an eight-foot-long piece of a car's exhaust system."
      This the first year that the hiking club has arranged a formal outing to clean up parts of the VASA Trail. Calling Sunday's trail sweep a success, Heiam said it may become a regular outing in the spring.
      "Many members of our club are active members of TART and have helped maintain the trail for years," he added. "This was so successful that we will probably do it again next year."
      The Grand Traverse Hiking Club is a member of the North Country Trail Association, a grass roots group of hikers dedicated to creating and maintaining a trail through seven northern states. Association members envision a footpath that will eventually be 4,000 miles long and stretch from New York State to North Dakota.
      The 160 members of the Grand Traverse Hiking Club are responsible for a 40-50 mile section of the trail that includes Grand Traverse County. The group maintains and cleans up this stretch mostly in the spring and fall.
      "Surprisingly, working in the forest isn't as comfortable as it is in the other seasons because it gets warm and the bugs come out," Heiam noted. "If you're going to do real work, it's better to do it at other times of the year."